Simon and the Guides
by Anneack
Summary: Simon has to get some help saving the guys


Simon and the Guides 

by

Anneack

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I am writing this totally for fun and am receiving no money for it. Petfly productions owns all things Sentinel. A big thank you for TAE the best beta reader a new writer could have. This is my first story so please let me know how you liked it!

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Simon Banks, Captain of Major Crimes division of the Cascade Police, returned from his late lunch meeting, barged into the bullpen and stopped dead in his tracks. "Can someone tell me why there is a panther on Jim's desk and a wolf sitting in his chair?" 

The detectives in the bullpen stared at their captain in disbelief. Henry and Rafe had a near collision, both trying to leave on casework, or anything else that would get them out of Captain Banks' range, at the same time. Joel looked at Simon with understanding compassion. " Have a bad night there, Simon? High stress huh, that can get you every time, man."

"I am not stressed! I am wondering why my bullpen now resembles the Cascade zoo! What? Don't you see them? Are they invisible or something?" The head of Major Crimes was bellowing at this point.

"Uh, actually, Simon, all I see is Jim's desk and his chair." Joel remained calm and concerned as he watched his captain, who was also one of his oldest friends.

Simon turned back to the desk, but the wildlife was gone. Stress, he thought, just losing my mind due to stress, nothing to worry about. He slowly entered his office only to get a vision of a wolf wearing Sandburg's child like grin and checking out the coffee selection. In a moment it was gone. Simon tried to believe he had never seen it. He reached for the aspirin and began answering messages.

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Simon rolled over in his bed, feeling a weird tingling sensation on his neck; Simon reached for his gun in the bedside table and whirled around, rolling off the bed. Stretched out on the bed, tongue bathing himself, was a magnificent Black Panther. Simon watched, jaw gaping, as the sleek animal rose and meowed. It began moving towards him. Simon brought up the gun to shoot; the cat was gone as quickly and mysteriously as he had come. Simon shook his head, trying to organize his brain at an hour too early for coherent thought processes to occur. 

"Sleep deprivation. I am suffering from hallucinations due to sleep deprivation. There are no wild animals in this house. I'm just seeing things. Third night on four hours of sleep, and I'm beginning to feel as old as Sandburg thinks I am." Still muttering about sleep deprivation causing hallucinations, he headed to the shower. Rinsing the soap from his eyes, there was a feeling of thick fur around his legs. Looking down, he found a wolf smiling back at him, tongue hanging out and eyes staring up to meet his.

"What now, Banks, pink elephants?" He stepped slowly away from the animal, vacating the shower. The wolf trotted over to the doorway and stood waiting. Simon finished his morning routine with the wolf never leaving, but never stepping any closer. Returning to the bedroom, he reached for the phone and dialed animal control.

" This is Captain Simon Banks of the Cascade P.D. I need to report a wolf in my house. He seems to be fairly tame, but I need him picked up as soon as possible."

Simon turned to look at the animal and found it was gone. "I'll call you right back. It seems to have left." Taking a deep breath, Simon rubbed his eyes and reached for a bottle of aspirin. "He's not even here and I'm getting a Sandburg level headache."

As he left his house and headed to his car, he blinked. For a moment he could have sworn there was a Black Panther on the roof of his car surveying the world like he was its king. And there had appeared to be a wolf in the passenger's seat, with his head out the window, all set to go for a ride. When he opened his eyes again they were gone. "I just know that somehow when Jim and Blair get back from vacation, either this whole thing is going to stop, or it's going to turn into another trip to the Sandburg Zone." Simon shuddered at the thought of another trip into the world his apparently permanent observer lived in.

Cascade National Park

Blood. Jim Ellison's sentinel smell was picking up blood. Not Blair's so it must be his.

"Great, Blair's bled so much around me that I actually have the smell of his blood memorized. Chief? Sandburg?"

Listening for the one sound that mattered to him, he heard it off to his right. A strong, steady, Sandburg heartbeat. As long as Blair was alive the rest he could fix somehow. Taking a deep breath and dialing the pain down a notch, Jim began an assessment of himself. No headaches, vision or hearing problems. Head was fine. He had already turned his head, looking for his partner, so the neck worked. Shoulder and arms, fine. Legs, not fine. Right one seemed to be all right. Left one was the problem then. Opening his eyes, Jim looked down and saw his leg pinned to the ground by a large rock. The rock must have moved when he and Blair had fallen into this cave from the hole towards the top. A groan came from his right, Blair was waking up!

"Jim, tell me you're all right. This is like so not funny! Oh man, Simon is never going to let us loose again after this!"

"Blair, I'm over on your left, about 5 feet. Just take it easy. You know the drill here, Chief."

"You know you've done this kind of thing too often when the procedures become habit, kind of like how we both know the hospital phone number by heart. Oh man, I just can't seem to think here."

"Can you move, Sandburg? My leg is caught, so you're going to have to come to me because I can't get to you."

"You can't move your leg? Is it bleeding? How far down have you had to dial your pain?" Blair was in instant protect the Sentinel mode'.

"Relax, Sandburg. The only problem is my leg, there's just a large rock pinning it down. The only blood is from cuts and scrapes. Nothing to worry about. I don't even have my pain dialed all the way down. Just try to come over here if you can." Jim's voice settling the guide as he answered him.

Blair calmed down, as Jim was apparently fine, just stationary. Scraping and shuffling sounds were accompanied by muttered curses as Blair inched his way over to the larger man.

"This is like so not good. I thought one of you was bad, now there's three of you! Hey I can do three times as many tests now!" Blair half bounced at the thought, but then stopped, grabbing his head. "Have you seen my head Jim, I think it fell off when I moved a minute ago."

Blair sat down next to Jim. Reaching over, Jim checked Blair's eyes and found them unevenly dilated. Swearing under his breath at his friend being hurt yet again, Jim settled an arm around his friend's shoulders.

"Listen, you have a concussion, You absolutely can't go to sleep."

"Got it, can't go to sleep. So, how do you propose we spend the time? You can't move and I can't sleep or climb to safety."

"I'll tell you about my first date. She was this red headed sophomore I had chemistry class with."

"Jim, what is it you and the red heads man?" Blair laughed, and Jim thanked God for the sound.

Cascade Police Department

Collecting his messages from Rhonda, Simon headed into his office, stopped and stared. His map of Cascade County was spread out on the floor. The wolf was holding one side down and the black jaguar was holding down the other. They had ripped a hole in a section of Cascade National Park. He stood immobile as they played hockey using one of his angel statues as a puck, slamming it back and forth at each other. The Wolf suddenly got a big grin and slammed it just out of the panther's reach towards Simon, the cat responded by growling at the laughing canine.

"Timmy at least got a friendly helper. Instead of Lassie I get the two of you destroying my office while I meet with the police commissioner. Give me that, its mine!" He snarled at the unwelcome guests while picking up the statue.

Joel heard the captain barking at the empty office and went over to investigate and help if he could. All he saw was a ripped map on the floor and Simon holding one of his angel statues, glaring at the floor.

"Hey Simon, isn't that the part of the park where Jim and Blair were going camping? Unless you usually use your maps on the floor, I would say the guys' guardian angels are trying to tell you something."

"Those two can't even have normal angels! Call the park rangers Joel; have them send someone to their campsite to check on them." Simon watched the two animals wrestling over the illegal hockey move, knocking over a picture of Simon with his best friends taken on a fishing trip last year.

"I swear, the large man growled, if those two managed to find trouble this time, I am never letting them out of my sight again!"

Suddenly a bear roar echoed through his office. Looking through the blind's slats he saw that no one in the bullpen had reacted at all. Shaking his head, he turned and the animals were once again gone. Taking the last aspirin in the bottle, he swore that those two were buying him his next economy-sized bottle of maximum strength painkiller, after all they were the reason he used the stuff.

Cascade National Park

"Oh man, so Carolyn, screaming in hysterics, locks herself in the car leaving you to deal with the big bad monster Grizzly Bear, witch turned out to be a raccoon, who had come in to the campsite after leftovers?" Blair was laughing as hard as he could without hurting his head any more.

"Yep. We left to go back home the next morning. That was the last time Carolyn and I tried to go camping." Jim smiled at Blair's amusement.

"Something tells me she was not the outdoors type."

"No, she was not. When we first started dating I took her fishing with me..."Blair smiled as the story of his best friend's fishing expedition was told. Above them on the hill, next to the hole they had fallen through, a large Grizzly was keeping watch for a panther and a wolf to show up with the rescue crew.

Camp Site in Cascade National Park

"No one was here last night. The camp got set up, but no one's used it." The park ranger explained while Simon and Joel looked around trying to see if the men had left on their own or been taken away. Simon looked up to see the wolf standing at the edge of one of the trails. A low growl warned him that the panther was behind him. The large cat started moving towards him, hissing and showing his teeth as he began to herd the captain towards the grinning and bouncing wolf.

"Joel, they went down this trail. Sandburg was probably going nuts after spending all morning in the car, so he and Jim decided to stretch their legs after the drive." The two detectives moved along the trail seeing signs every now and again of a hiker having passed by that way.

The wolf always kept just ahead of them like a carrot in front of a horse. The Panther stayed behind, herding them towards the wolf like a sheepdog moving a flock. Every now and then a bear's roar could be heard, the large cat and his companion would then hurry faster or change direction slightly. The bear was never ignored, however. Simon was astonished. Apparently these two new menaces to his life could and would follow orders when they choose to do so. Since a wolf and a jaguar together as these two obviously where could take a bear out, they had obviously intentionally put themselves under the other animal's authority. Simon shook his head; "I have got to spend less time with Sandburg. The kid's got me analyzing the behavior of invisible animals!"

The wolf gave an excited yip and raced forward, disappearing in the clearing ahead. Looking back, the Captain saw the jaguar had stopped and was waiting for them to move into the clearing. A bear could be heard in the meadow. Simon also could have sworn that he heard Jim's voice. And something that sounded like Blair laughing. He ran to the clearing with Joel right behind him. A bear stood on his hind legs and roared at them from the top of the hill.

"Over there, Joel!" The Bear disappeared as the two large men climbed the rise.

"Ellison? Sandburg?" He shouted their names, hoping his two detectives would answer.

"You can't call us into your office out here, sir! Your office is two hours way!" A voice called to him from below. That voice was frequently the harbinger of a headache, but today it was the most beautiful sound on the planet.

"Where are you, Jim?" Simon looked around him.

"There's a cave under the hill. Sandburg and I fell through. Blair's got a concussion and my leg is pinned. Hope you brought the rescue squad!" Jim answered. Blair could be heard laughing hysterically in the background.

" I can see you from here, Jim! Joel's already radioed the ranger station. Help should be here in about 20 minutes. I think Im going to put radio tracking collars on the pair of you the next time I let you two lose on your own though!" Captain Banks looked down at his favorite team and shook his head.

"How did you know where to find us, man?" Blair looked up at him, grinning like the wolf had been.

"Some big furry angels of yours told me where to go." Simon hoped just this once to be the one leaving the other two confused.

"Jim! He saw the wolf and panther, man! This is like so cool!" Blair was bouncing in his seat on the ground.

"Ellison, can't you control him? Even with a concussion he bounces," Banks groused as he half smiled at the team. The sounds of the rescue squad could already be heard. Everyone would be fine. A little ways away a wolf, a panther, and a bear sat relaxing until the next crisis arose.


End file.
